Luke JR is a troll. The fact that there is still people pushing for a "big blocks" agenda shows how dumb/vested interest behind that they are. Anyone with a brain in 2016 knows scaling on-chain it's impossible unless you don't care that the network becomes more centralized and stupid without a conservative approach, that's why Core is and will remain the #1. There will never be enough consensus to hard fork Bitcoin for mindless experiment's sake. The conservative approach which is the approach that has made Bitcoin able to survive for this long, will remain the chosen one. Every alternative will end up like Classic/XT because they are unprofessional amateur punks without nothing to show.
I agree, but I don't share your opinion regarding Luke JR. He has made significant contributions to Core.
The big block agenda has largely failed, because Core developers came up with a much more intelligent solution. Also many initial supporters (excluding some Gavinista lunatics) are realizing that the doomsday scenarios painted by the FUD campaign during the XT/ClassicCoin launch attempts failed to materialize. Despite the shiny extrapolation graphic that was widely circulated and contained a red painted failure zone since the beginning of this year, the Bitcoin network is more healthy than ever.
Core continues to innovate, because it has the most intelligent developers behind it. The departure of Hearn and (inofficially) Andresen was a great relief.
ya.ya.yo!